No good news in the preliminary Markit PMIs

As always, the Markit Purchasing Managers Indexes are some of the first data we receive about a month. The November preliminary readings came out today and from the perspective of the global business cycle, it is hard to find good news in there. All the PMIs released were lower than their final number for October. The upticks we saw in the Eurozone and China appear to have been reversed.

Source: Markit, Bloomberg, Astor calculations

In the heatmap above bright green shows the US as the strongest market, consistent with its place throughout the year and with what most analysts are expecting for 2015. The muddy colors of Europe show most around the 50% expansion /contraction line, with France setting a new low for the year. Interestingly, There does not seem to be much evidence of deterioration in Japan over the last six months, giving hope that the two consecutive quarters of negative growth will soon be reversed

The time series below shows a different view of the big three, US, Eurozone and China. All off their recent highs and the Eurozone and China close to the contraction line.

Source: Markit, Bloomberg, Astor calculations

I am concerned we will see additional deterioration in coming months, though there is currently no sign of a dramatic plunge in manufacturing activity.

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